


Blue Lines (Swotting Remix)

by mssdare



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Camelot Remix, Drawing, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Love Poems, M/M, Pablo Neruda - Freeform, Remix, Writing on Skin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-22 23:26:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3747460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mssdare/pseuds/mssdare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur can't understand poetry. Merlin helps him.</p><p>Remix of "Swotting" by Alby_mangroves, which was a Pornathon 2014 entry for this prompt: (503): He's helping me study for the final by writing the vocab words all over his body.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blue Lines (Swotting Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alby_mangroves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alby_mangroves/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Swotting](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2030406) by [alby_mangroves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alby_mangroves/pseuds/alby_mangroves). 



> Dear Alby_mangroves! When I got my Remix assignment and I saw it was you, I was both delighted, because it's a huge privilege to be able to remix one of your works (art or fic), and VERY terrified, because nothing I could write will ever do you justice. The drawing I have chosen to remix is one of my favorites, and I hope you'll enjoy the little story it inspired.
> 
> I'd like to thank my pre-reader Daroh (Yesimafan) and my beta Sillygoose (sonofsilly)!

**Blue Lines**

 

“Oh, fuck it. This is _a nightmare_.” Arthur pushes the thick volume of poetry out of reach and leans back in his chair, gripping his hair tight.

Merlin looks up from his bed on the other side of the room, where he sits curled up with his battered MacBook. “What?”

“This.” Arthur gestures with exasperation towards the discarded book. “I don’t understand why we have to take a literature class. I’m studying _Economics and Business_ , not _Arts and Culture_ , for fuck’s sake.”

Merlin sighs and puts the laptop on the floor. When he stands up it looks as if he’s unfolding—he’s long-limbed and tall, graceful despite how clumsy he sometimes appears. He walks to Arthur, his bare feet soundless on the thin carpet floor. He leans over Arthur to pick up the book and raises an eyebrow, questioning.

When Arthur retrieves the book from Merlin’s hands their fingers meet, as usual making Arthur’s pulse pick up. He shuffles through the pages and shoves the tome back at Merlin.

Merlin looks at the page, taking in the words. His eyes widen in surprise, and then something flows over Merlin’s features, like a sudden cloud on a sunny day, sucking out life. There isn’t anything in the poem that would explain such a reaction, and Arthur feels embarrassed: both for himself, for not understanding this, and for Merlin, for letting something affect him in this way, leaving him exposed and raw in front of Arthur.

Merlin opens his mouth, stays soundless for a moment, and finally starts: “Oh. Oh this is—“

“Meaningless!” Arthur finishes for him.

When Merlin looks up at Arthur he seems sad. “I’d think you, of all people, would relate to this Neruda poem.”

Arthur doesn’t know why he should be the one ‘getting’ this, but it might be just one of those things Merlin says sometimes when he’s too emotional, or when he’s looking at Arthur as if searching for something that isn’t really there.

“I’ve read this bloody thing like a hundred times already, but still it’s just a bundle of words scattered along that page that only pleases snobs who dissect every sentence into iambs or trochees or whatever it’s called.”

Merlin’s lips quirk in amusement. “This is so not how you read poetry, Arthur!”

The thing about Arthur is that he absolutely loathes being patronised, even in matters that Merlin is an expert on. This is why he’s annoyed when he huffs. “Oh, how _is_ it then?” He takes the book back from Merlin’s hands and eyes it as if it’s offending his inner sense of order. “I’m pretty sure I’m required to diagram those metres or else I don’t pass, thank you very much.”

Merlin sighs. “I guess. It’s a shame, though.”

He sits at the edge of Arthur’s desk, cocking his head. From where Arthur’s sitting, Merlin looks distractingly _dramatic_ ,with his hideouslylong eyelashes and plump lips.

“Doesn’t it give you chills?” Merlin asks, but Arthur can’t really answer because he’s already caught, lost in Merlin’s half-lidded, curious gaze. And Merlin is so beautiful like this, with his eyes shining and lips slightly parted, focused and intent because Art isn’t something Merlin jokes about. “And if I read this to you, will it make a difference? If I say, ‘ _Whoever you are. I love you.’_ ”

 _Oh yes_ , Arthur wants to answer. That would make a whole a lot of difference. But they don’t say this to each other. This is forbidden. Arthur has duties and his business or political career ahead, and Merlin is… Merlin is more often high than lucid. And even if he is some kind of genius, as his professors say, deriving his inspirations from human culture as if he’s lived in every single century himself, he’s still just a _boy_ from nowhere.

“ _Whoever you are_ ,” Merlin repeats, leaning closer to Arthur, and Arthur holds his breath, waiting for whatever there is to follow. But Merlin drops his gaze and sits silently. When he looks up again there’s mischief in his expression and Arthur exhales. _This_ he knows how to deal with.

“And if—” Merlin reaches for eyeliner that lies on Arthur’s desk because Merlin is a messy fucker and his things are _everywhere_. He scribbles a few words on his arm. The dark blue of the eyeliner contrasts with the pale colour of Merlin’s skin and matches the rivers of veins on his forearms. “If it were written on _something_ you crave, instead of dead paper?”

Arthur raises his eyebrow. This is a challenge and he never surrenders without putting up a good fight. Even if Merlin doesn’t play fair.

“Or maybe…” Merlin takes his T-shirt off and writes the words of the poem across his chest, the writing narrow and sharp-edged like ancient glyphs. The blue lines tangle with his scarce hair.

“Let me.” Arthur retrieves the eyeliner from Merlin and leans over Merlin’s leg, tugging on his sweatpants to reach to Merlin’s navel. The skin there is warm and smooth and strangely hairless. Intimate. He runs his fingers over it.

“Like vanilla cream,” he says.

When he was little this is how he imagined the moon would taste—not like a milk roll and definitely not like cheese. The moon must be creamy and soft, a caress to Arthur’s tongue, just like Merlin’s skin.

When he lays Merlin down on the bed, searching for uncovered bits of flesh, the words come to Arthur all by themselves. They seem to match Merlin’s thighs and calves, as if they want to be painted there, spilling under Arthur’s fingertips like broken beads. Some of those words want to be kissed into Arthur’s mouth and fed back to Merlin.

And that’s what’s led them here, to this moment with Merlin straining under Arthur’s hold, warm and wanton, both close and far away, as Merlin always feels to Arthur whenever he’s in Arthur’s arms.

“The other one,” Arthur says, thrusting up, waiting for Merlin to exhale before thrusting again. “The other, I could learn. I could understand.”

He was a bit embarrassed to say it before, but now, as his grip on Merlin’s hips tightens and his thrusts pick up, as he sees the imprints of his fingers like little proofs of his possession where the eyeliner has smeared, he’s not ashamed anymore.

He leans into Merlin’s ear where Merlin’s hair curls, damp and soft on his skin, and recites, “ _I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul._ ”

Merlin shudders, pushing back against Arthur. “Am I...?” His hand skims down his body to grip himself tight, either to prolong this or in search of relief, Arthur isn’t sure. “Am I your dirty secret, then?” Merlin asks.

And yes, he is, because Arthur won’t dare admit to his friends and certainly not to his father that he’s in love with this man. Because that’s what this is, right? It’s gone way beyond fucking now. Somewhere along the way, Merlin’s become the axis of Arthur’s world.

 

~*~*~*~

  
Arthur remembers the first days with Merlin in this crammed space, at the beginning of University, when they were thrown together by the randomness of the halls lottery.

“Destiny,” Merlin had said, throwing his battered orange rucksack on a bed across from Arthur’s.

“Incompetence!” Arthur had huffed.                                 

He’d been so pissed off—at his father for refusing to rent a place for him, at the University system that wouldn’t allow single rooming. Instead, he’d been stuck with Merlin: a messy, irresponsible, gay art-boy. Merlin, who was always high or in some art frenzy, sketching or planning absolutely ridiculous ‘installations’ out of scrap metal, grocery products, and photographs of nude bodies.

“Repositioning the human condition in relation to the narrative of consumption,” Merlin had explained it, or some other nonsense that sounded a lot like that.

If Arthur had to pinpoint the exact moment he’d started looking at Merlin differently, in the most inappropriate way for a roomie, it’d have to be on that October Sunday he’d woken up to Merlin puking his guts out in the en suite bathroom.

“You okay, mate?” Arthur’d asked, although it was obvious Merlin was anything but. He was sitting on the bathroom floor with his head against the wall tiles, hair plastered to his forehead in messy, dark curls, and with his eyes closed. And he was pale, so pale, that for a moment there Arthur thought that maybe Merlin had died on that bathroom floor. He’d inched closer and bent down over Merlin.

“Merlin?”

When there was no reply Arthur had reached out and put his hand on Merlin’s neck to check his pulse—idiotic, yes, but he just needed to be sure. His own pulse raced in his chest, the heavy da-dum of his blood loud and almost painful in his ears. Merlin’s skin was clammy and cool under his fingers, but as soon as he’d decided to take his hand back, Merlin flinched and covered Arthur’s hand with his, stopping him mid-movement.

If Arthur had thought his heart was going to jump out of his chest before, now it went crazy. His mad, mad heart, making him do mad, mad things, like dropping on his knees next to Merlin and allowing Merlin to keep Arthur’s hand in his, pressed down to Merlin’s neck, with their pulses mixed together like joined rivers.

“What’s wrong? Bad hangover?” Arthur’d asked to fill in the silence.

“Bad day,” Merlin had said, not opening his eyes. “Week. Or month. A millennium. I don’t know.” He’d let their hands fall away and released Arthur’s palm from his grasp.

Arthur could have stood up then and retreated—escaped like his brain was screaming for him to do—but he’d stayed on the floor. “Do you want anything? A glass of water? An aspirin?”

Merlin had shaken his head and groaned; the motion must have upset his stomach again. He’d got hold of the toilet edge and leaned over it, dry-heaving.

“Sorry,” he’d muttered, laying his head down on his arms, hugging the toilet. His T-shirt had scrunched up, revealing a sliver of skin on Merlin’s lower back, and Arthur had been transfixed by it.

 _Way to go, Arthur. Perv on your sick roomie, why don’t you_.  Arthur had stood up and cleared his throat. “I’ll make you some tea.”

When he later came back from the adjoining kitchenette with a cup of steaming tea in his hands (a decent traditional blend, not any of the atrocious herbal stuff Merlin normally drank), Merlin had been sleeping, curled up on the bed with his clothes on and his face translucent pale, almost blueish. Arthur put the tea on Merlin’s nightstand and looked around in search of a blanket, but Merlin was already on top of it, so Arthur had taken his own with a sigh and covered Merlin up.

Whether it was the memory of Merlin’s skin under Arthur’s fingers, or that sliver of revealed smooth skin right above Merlin’s jeans, something had shifted around them that morning. After that, Arthur had never been able to not try to steal a glance, the creepy stalker that he was, in hope of seeing more skin.

He _craved_. He wanted to look, he ached to touch—so much—to the point where he’d deliberately brush against Merlin in the kitchenette or pretend he was asleep only to get a glimpse of Merlin’s skin while he was undressing for bed at some horrid early morning hour.

~*~*~*~

  
To some extent this feeling has never subsided, even long after Arthur’s gotten the chance to see and touch and taste almost every part of Merlin. He’s still jealous of everyone who looks at Merlin, madly greedy even when he’s buried deep inside him.

He bats Merlin's hand away and grips Merlin's cock, squeezing it hard at the base, keeping Merlin from coming. Arthur's own dick aches; he wants to give in, but he won't come before Merlin. The lube mixed with sweat is squelchy, and everything feels a bit too slippery and too heated. Arthur's grip on Merlin's cock looses and he starts jerking Merlin off to the rhythm of his thrusts.

When he looks at Merlin's shoulder he sees blues and greys smeared on his skin and all over the sheets. He bites Merlin's neck gently and stays like that with his teeth just over the surface of Merlin's flesh, and then he licks the bothered skin to make it better. He tastes salt and sweetness and all that is Merlin.

"I wish I could swallow you whole," he says, and Merlin moans in his arms, his cock jerking in Arthur's hard grip. "Like those old gods, you know? I'd eat you whole and keep you warm and safe and _mine_ in my stomach. And you’d be me, then. Like in that poem: ‘ _So close that your hand on my chest is my hand._ ’”

This is the moment when Merlin quiets, his mouth opening in a silent O. It means that he's close. Arthur knows it well. Merlin once told Arthur that this is the moment he loves the most: this feeling of being lost in time, floating, absent any thoughts, like after taking a good drug, only safe and warm in Arthur’s embrace.

And then Merlin whines, his whole body tensing in Arthur's arms, and he comes, spurting over Arthur's hand and the sheets. Arthur fucks him through this, hard and deep until Merlin wriggles. It's probably too much for Merlin to bear, so Arthur stills—with his cock squeezed by the walls of Merlin body—aching, _aching_ to come too.

He waits for Merlin's breath to even up, for his buttocks to be soft and relaxed again, and when Merlin finally slumps in Arthur's arms, he pushes Merlin onto his stomach, pinning him to the sheets with the whole weight of his body.

God, Merlin is so pliant like this. Warm and willing and just—taking it. Arthur thinks of the filthiest desires he can come up with: of filling Merlin up to the brink with his seed and then sucking it all out, only to push it back in again with his tongue.

  
~*~*~*~

“How come your skin is so smooth?” Arthur strokes the blurred lines of words still visible on Merlin, even if he’s smudging them more. “If all poetry were written on your skin, I’d read it over and over and over again.”

“Oh, you would?” Merlin smiles and looks up from underneath his eyelashes, flirtatious. “And you wouldn’t tire of me?”

“Well, it’s you who always rumbles on about how one _cannot_ tire of _real Art_.”

“I’m your masterpiece, then, huh?”

Arthur wants to answer with something cheeky, but all he can think of is that Merlin _is_ a masterpiece—poetry or not—and no words are actually worthy of his skin.

“You are the sublimation of art,” he says, kissing Merlin’s shoulder, and Merlin laughs, swatting at Arthur’s arm.

The rain that has been pouring down the whole afternoon eases now, and heavy droplets of water drip slowly down the window’s glass. If Merlin went out now, all those letters on his skin would dissolve and flow down his body like little blue rivers swollen with meaning, feeding the soil with words. And Merlin would be pure and clean again, born anew, free of the nightmares that cloud his mind. But perhaps Merlin has always been like this—half lucid, neither here nor in the dreamland.

Merlin stretches on the sheets with his eyes closed, still and peaceful. In the greys of the bedroom his profile looks as if it’s made of marble—as if it’s Merlin’s death mask on a sarcophagus.

Arthur lies on his side and strokes Merlin’s thigh, tracing the words smeared on his skin, the line that used to say, “ _I don't hold on to forever.”_

Merlin watches his movements and after a while says, “I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

“For betraying you. You always see the best in people. And everyone has betrayed you. Even me.”

Arthur perches himself up on the bed, tense, because it’s happening again—Merlin’s losing his grip on reality, saying things that are distant and odd. “What are you talking about?”

“Sometimes—” Merlin turns over to face Arthur. He reaches with his hand, stroking Arthur’s cheek and leaving his fingers on Arthur’s neck. They are cool and soft and make Arthur shiver. “Sometimes I know you. And then… I don’t know anything anymore.” He lets his arm fall. “I don’t even care if you’re _him_ or not.”

Arthur doesn’t ask who he reminds Merlin of. He’s learned it’s better not to pry, as it usually ends up with Merlin being all withdrawn and sad for days and days, or worse—with Merlin vanishing for a few nights, then coming back with blue circles under his eyes.

 

~*~*~*~

 

The first time Merlin flipped out was when he saw Arthur half naked a few weeks into rooming together. Which could have been funny, only it wasn’t.

“What’s that from?”

Arthur had looked up from the belt he was fastening to see Merlin watching him as if the vision of Arthur bare-chested were making him sick. “What?”

When Merlin had approached with his hand outstretched, Arthur froze because Merlin looked so _odd_ that it made Arthur wonder if maybe Merlin wasn’t just high but possibly… _mental_.

The delicate stroke of Merlin’s fingers had been barely there, but it shot a jolt of electricity through Arthur’s body. Merlin had ghosted his fingertips over the mark on Arthur’s stomach.

“This,” Merlin said.

Arthur shrugged. “S’nothing. A birthmark.” He’d tried to lighten up the weird mood with a grin, but he wasn’t sure if he succeeded. “I’ve always thought it was pretty cool! It looks like a battle wound, doesn’t it? From a sword or a bullet.” He’d faltered when Merlin paled and withdrew his hand hastily, as if it’d been set on fire.

“Arthur.” Merlin said it in a way that made Arthur cold.

“You okay, mate?” he’d asked, uncertain what to do. He’d not been trained to deal with crazy, drug-addicted art-boys.

Merlin had turned around. “I try not to remember you,” he’d said softly. His shoulders were stiff and he looked frail, like something delicate and breakable, and for a fleeting moment Arthur’d had the urge to embrace Merlin to protect him from evil.

“What do you mean? We’ve never met before.” Although Merlin had seemed familiar. For some reason, Arthur was sure there was no force in the world that would make him forget that smile and those madly blue eyes. “I’d know.”

“I _can’t_ remember,” Merlin had said. “Because when I do, I go crazy. This needs to stop. I don’t want to remember. I _choose_ not to.” The last words had come out with such anger and force that it seemed as if the air had moved around them. Dust flared up and then slowly filtered down, every particle of it visible, stilled in the air for a split second until time had picked up again.

When Merlin walked to his side of the room to sit slowly on his bed, Arthur had followed as if on an invisible string attached to the bottom of his navel. He’d kneeled next to Merlin, still concerned, because yes, the arty idiot might scare him sometimes but he seemed like a sweetheart after all, and Arthur himself wasn’t a cold-hearted dick either, despite what others might have thought.

“Merlin,” he’d said evenly, trying to put as much force and authority as possible into his words. “I know you weren’t born yesterday—“

Merlin had chuckled. “You have no idea,” he’d said, and there was something dark and ugly in his voice that Arthur decided to ignore.

Arthur had held up a hand. “—and I’m hardly in a position to preach to you. But you need to stop doing this shit. Stop taking whatever it is that you’re taking. It’s not healthy. You’ll wake up one day with your head messed up for good, you know? And I might not be there to put you back together.” He’d meant that last sentence as a joke, but somehow it didn’t sound like it.

When Merlin looked up at him, Arthur’s breath had caught because Merlin’s eyes were so blue it was almost impossible they weren’t coloured with contact lenses. It had been weirdly exhilarating to be pinned down by Merlin’s gaze like a statue to a dais.

“Why would you care?” Merlin had asked. “You hate my guts.” Even though he’d sounded sad, there was an inkling of a smile there too.

Arthur fought the urge to touch the corner of Merlin’s lips but then he thought, _Oh,_ _fuck it_ , and he’d reached out to press the pad of his finger to the soft flesh of Merlin’s mouth.

“I do hate your guts,” he’d said, smiling.

Merlin had been very still underneath Arthur’s touch.

“But they are lovely guts too. I am—” Arthur had traced the shape of Merlin’s upper lip until he slipped his thumb lower and cradled Merlin’s face in his palm. Merlin’s cheek felt smooth and warm. His breath had been shallow and fast when Arthur leaned closer.

Arthur really shouldn’t have done it. It was unwise. It was immoral. He’d been sure it would come back to bite him in the arse. “I am rather fond of your guts.”

Merlin’s lips had parted gently when Arthur kissed him. It was only a short kiss, delicate and shallow, but as Arthur traced with his mouth the same path his fingers had done just seconds ago, something hot and perfectly familiar sparked in his chest.

But after a few of the most delicious moments of Arthur’s life, Merlin had already started retreating. The door had shut behind him with a click, leaving Arthur standing stunned and perhaps a little bit heartbroken in the middle of the room.

“What were you thinking?” Arthur had gripped Merlin’s shoulder, shaking him hard when Merlin came back in the morning, tired and shaking from cold, wet from the rain and swaying from exhaustion as if he’d been running all night long while Arthur had been sitting in the dark, going out of his mind.

It had only been reasonable to get Merlin out of his wet clothes as soon as possible and tuck him into Arthur’s bed underneath all the blankets, only prudent to slip behind him, skin to skin, warmth spreading like fire, dangerous but good.

“You are mine,” Arthur had said the first time Merlin shuddered, coming under Arthur’s fingers.

He’d fucked Merlin then, pushing his cock in between Merlin’s thighs, holding him still and keeping his legs squeezed tight together to create as much friction as possible. Then he’d observed his come trickling down Merlin’s smooth, pale skin, catching on Merlin’s leg hair like raindrops on leaves.

“Would you mind if I pushed all that inside you?” he’d wanted to ask, but he didn’t because that wasn’t exactly something one said the first time. If Arthur could have had his way, he’d have rubbed his come into Merlin’s soft places like one rubs cocaine into one’s gums.

“I want to be your only drug,” he’d said.

He’d manoeuvred Merlin onto his back and then watched him splayed like a loose-limbed starfish.

“Do you, now?” Merlin had smiled, one of those lazy, seductive smiles of his that made Arthur want to lick and bite and mark Merlin all over again.

 

~*~*~*~

And nothing’s changed since then. Arthur craves Merlin with a force that scares him, like one wants things beyond this world, as if he’s sold his soul to the devil, only to replace it with dark, all-consuming desire.

He thinks now of that first kiss, and of all the times when Merlin withdrew or started looking at Arthur as if he were a ghost.

Perhaps Arthur should put a name to that; perhaps he should worry more, but he settles on tugging Merlin closer and holding him tight until the deep, even rhythm of Merlin’s chest expanding under Arthur’s fingers means that Merlin is asleep. Which is… unusual. As far as Arthur knows, Merlin never sleeps. He’s like a vampire, Arthur thinks—immortal and old, even though they are practically the same age.

 

~*~*~*~

The sun is long up, the new day bright, wiping away the blueish memory of the night, when Merlin stirs and then sighs and sits up.

“So. Okay then,” he murmurs. “ _Let's gather some sticks. Let's light a fire on the mountain_ , huh?”

He pushes himself from the edge of the bed.

Arthur watches his lithe form as Merlin slowly walks to the kitchenette, switches on the light over the oven for no reason, and then puts the kettle on. He stands there with his head low, perching his arms on the counter top as if he needs some leverage to keep upright. The pale globes of Merlin’s buttocks are in contrast with the red fronts of the worktop, Arthur thinks, and then he shakes his head because Merlin’s arty way of seeing things has rubbed off on him at last.

Merlin keeps standing there, with his back to Arthur, and some painful anxiety creeps up in Arthur, making him panic for a moment. Because _what if?_ _What if Merlin has really lost his mind for good this time?_

Arthur is about to stand up to check on Merlin when the kettle turns off with a ding, startling them both. Merlin moves, taking a cup from the rack, throwing a tea bag in it and pouring the boiling water.

When he turns around he’s smiling broadly, his eyes crinkly and his long teeth exposed.

“Thank the gods for Thomas Sullivan, huh?” he says as he walks back to the bed, puts the cup on the nightstand, and curls himself back on the bed next to Arthur, who spoons him and squeezes him tight.

“And who is this Thomas Sullivan? Should I be worried?” Arthur might be teasing, but already possessive jealously is coiling in his belly, ready to spring up his throat.

“He invented the tea bag,” Merlin says with perfect equanimity. “Gods, one would think you’d never lived.”

It’s nice to be like this, Arthur thinks, close and warm, peaceful for once. He nuzzles Merlin’s nape, breathing in, and then humps Merlin from behind a little bit only to make him laugh some more. He chuckles too, pushing Merlin on his back to kiss him and chase Merlin’s smile with his tongue, and then he leans back to look at him. He wonders if Merlin can see in his eyes how Arthur feels—the way it’s never going to be enough, the way there’s never going to be anyone else for him.

All the words on Merlin’s skin are gone now, disappeared in a battlefield of blue smudges, and Arthur frowns, then spots the discarded eyeliner on the floor next to bed.

“Umpf,” Merlin says when Arthur reaches over him, crushing him to grab for the pencil.

He pins Merlin down and starts scribbling on Merlin’s arm, sticking his tongue out, trying for the most focused on-the-job expression he can muster while Merlin tries to see what he’s writing.

“There,” he says. “Better.”  

Merlin wriggles his arm out and looks at the somewhat lopsided “M + A = ♥ FOREVER.” He laughs but then looks pensive. He licks his finger, presses the wet pad to his skin, and wipes out the “forever.” It leaves a streak behind.

 _“I don’t hold on to forever_ ,” Merlin says, oddly serious. “I’m fine with just you this time around.”

 

~*~*~*~

 

**Author's Note:**

> When I was struggling with this story, my amazing, clever prereader advised me to read Love Sonnet LXXVIII (I don't hold onto never) as if it were Arthur speaking the words. Oh, my heart, does it suit him.  
> See for yourself:
> 
> Love Sonnet LXXVIII (I don't hold onto never), translated by AudieMcCall http://everything2.com/title/Neruda%2527s+Love+Sonnet+LXXVIII
> 
> Love Sonnet XVII (I do not love you...), translated by Stephen Tapscott  
> http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/xvii-i-do-not-love-you/


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